Joshua Prince-Ramus of OMA's talk at TED this year provides an interesting glimpse into the complex process of building design using the examples of the Seattle Public Library, Dallas Theater and Louisville's Contemporary Art Museum.
Some interesting highlights from the talk:
Seattle Public Library: Required an understanding of the future of the book and social role of the library. OMA understood that books would have to share their world with other technologies and libraries had the opportunity to play more of a social role. Delivering against these two objectives would allow Seattle to create a distinctive library, which was well prepared for the future.
Getting the library to agree on its social role was tough, until OMA analyzed the library's program and concluded that 2/3rds of the functions were social, so they designed the space accordingly.
Dallas Theater: This project demanded OMA understood the business of theater and how being able to automatically re-configure the stage design would lead to considerable cost savings.
Louisville Contemporary Art Museum: Serious demands were placed on the design. It had to fit that city, it could not interfere with many existing buildings, views needed to be protected and the building had to be mixed use.
The solution OMA came up with was to use a "chair" as inspiration and build around it. OMA also came up with a unique way to combine commercial and art space, allowing the two to flow together.
Prince-Ramus's talk illustrates the complexity involved in the process of architecture and the creativity required to solve problems and create new environments that challenge convention.
